


Love Her (But Leave Her Wild)

by azulaahai



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Canon Divergent AU, F/M, Fluff, I have a problem, Jon Snow is a Stark, Sansa is a wildling, and heeere I go again with the canon divergent "ghost finds sansa" au:s, eh idk what I'm doing as usual!, i know nothing about hypothermia clearly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-20
Updated: 2018-01-20
Packaged: 2019-03-07 09:31:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13431876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/azulaahai/pseuds/azulaahai
Summary: Prompt fill for @oreoswirl25 on tumblr: "Sansa is not a Stark in this au, but a wildling. Jon is both Ned's and Catelyn's true born son. He captures her while on a hunt."Title a quote by Atticus.





	Love Her (But Leave Her Wild)

**Author's Note:**

> Say hi or prompt me on tumblr, azulaahai.tumblr.com :)

The hunt had been quite a failure.

Game was harder and harder to find as autumn tightened its grip on the north. Jon had never felt more a Stark than he had during this hunt, having had to bite back a muttered _winter is coming_ every time the summer snows had begun anew. A hunting trip had, of course, been a terrible idea, but – just as stubborn as his mother always accused him of being – Jon had refused to give up the idea, even after Robb had fallen ill and become unable to join him. Theon Greyjoy, the traitor, had of course refused to go without Robb, so Jon was left alone with only a few men.

They had been quite far up north – Jon had had half a mind to keep riding for a few more days until they reached Castle Black and visit Uncle Benjen, but he best get back home as soon as possible. Both Bran and Arya had been jealous of his hunting trip, and Jon coming home with a story about visiting Uncle Benjen wouldn't do much to lessen their envy.

* * *

Sansa laid on her back in a drift of snow, her furs doing little to keep out the cold as a freezing breeze made her hair fly in the wind. Her deep-red hair, like blood against the glittering snow. She'd always been proud of her hair – she was kissed by fire, and that meant luck.

Luck. Aye, some might call her lucky, to have survived for so long, to have crossed the wall and been left alone by the wolves – the two-legged as well as the four-legged kind. To Sansa, her survival almost seemed a curse.

A curse that would end soon, if she kept lying down in the snow for much longer, Sansa knew. But she could not bring herself to get back on her feet.

* * *

It was Ghost who found her.

Jon's sullen hunting party had left the road in favor of a forest path that one of the men had insisted was a shortcut that would give them a chance to reach Winterfell before dark. The statement had already been proven untrue with twilight having crept in amongst the trees, when Ghost had howled, almost wailing. When trying to understand what the wolf wanted, Jon had seen the fur-clad figure Ghost was standing over, a person laying unmoving in a snow drift.

He ordered his men to halt at once, dismounting to approach the figure, one hand on the hilt of his sword. What in all the seven hells was someone doing out in the forest alone, without shelter, after dark?  
Jon's confusion only grew when he stepped closer and saw that it was a girl lying there in the snow, red hair refusing to be held back by her hood, instead falling freely down her shoulders. He was so taken aback, in fact, that it took him several seconds to realise two important truths.

Firstly, the girl was only barely alive, with an unnaturally pale face and closed eyes. She would die unless Jon acted fast.

Secondly – argueably a far more dangerous conclusion – the girl was a wildling.

* * *

Sansa had drifted off into a strange, blurry sort of almost-sleep, her eyes closed, her body numb, her mind filled by pleasant images of fires and food and the pup she used to play with when she was little, when someone started shaking her.

“Can you hear me?” a voice said unexpectedly close to her. “You have to wake up. Can you hear me?” Her eyes, slower to obey her brain's commands than usual, fluttered open reluctantly, her mind to frozen to fully comprehend the image before her.

A man was kneeling in the snow by her. A southerner, and a noble one at that, if the cloak was any indication. Perhaps even a lordling. Sansa closed her eyes again.

“What are you doing here?” asked the stranger, shaking her once more.

It was rather rude, Sansa thought, to interrupt her death-by-cold in this manner. Aspecially since the lordling was about to kill her anyway, if she wasn't mistaken – she hadn't gotten a good look at the stranger's sword, but it was surely sharp enough to leave her short of a head. Typical southern behaviour – stopping her from dying just so he could kill her himself. Sansa wondered why he had even bothered getting off his horse. He could have just left her here to the snow and the wolves – it would have saved him trouble and her pain. Oh, well. Sansa did not fear death as much as she once had.

And if the stories she'd heard about lordlings were true, their blades were sharp and their executions quick.

* * *

The girl did not reply to any of his increasingly desperate questions, nor did she open her eyes again. Jon was starting to panic. He knew that falling asleep in the cold meant death, and he had no idea how long she had been out here already. If she didn't keep awake now, she might never awaken again.

In an instant, Jon was on his feet, lifting the wildling girl up. To his relief, she opened her eyes in surprise as he carried her towards his horse.

“What are you doing, lordling?” she said through lips that the cold had turned purple.

“We're getting you somewhere warm, you hear me? But you are going to have to stay awake. Could you do that for me?”

“I owe you nothing yet, lordling.” But she kept her eyes open.

Jon hurled her up on his horse, who looked almost insulted at the notion that it was now to carry two riders instead of one. The girl was shaking, badly, from the cold and seemed nearly unable to move – Jon carefully helped her lift her leg to the other side so that she could straddle the horse.

“M'lord”, one of his men said behind him. Jon'd nearly forgotten they weren't alone.

“Aye?”

“Beg pardon, m'lord, but she's a wildling -”

“Thank you for the observation, I hadn't noticed”, he replied sourly. Wildling or no, he was not about to leave the girl behind to end her days in a wolf's belly. “We'll bring her back with us. My father can decide what to do with her.” Ned Stark was a man of mercy. If the girl was no threat, he would not harm her.

* * *

“Are you awake?” he asked her as soon as his horse began moving beneath them. Sansa had never ridden a horse before – it would have been rather exciting if she'd had the energy to care. She debated keeping silent, but fearing that would cause him to attempt to shake her awake again, she replied with a grunt.

“You have to stay awake”, the lordling said in her ear.

“I know.” The forest laid dark around them now. Sansa still felt distant, as if she was watching what was happening from afar.

“Keep talking, so I know you're awake.” His voice in her ear again. Had Sansa been able to feel her stomach, that voice might have made it flutter.

“Unlike you, it seems, I can be awake without speaking, lordling”, Sansa managed. Every movement of her tongue felt strange, difficult – her lips had trouble forming the words. 

To her surprise, the lordling huffed a laugh at her words.

“That's the spirit. Keep going.”

“Leave me be, southerner.” Her voice was tired, she heard – _she_ was tired. Why hadn't she died already? Perhaps she had, and this was what happened when you died – a stranger came and shook you and took you with him.

“I'm no southerner”, he replied, and the way he said it almost made her believe him.

“You live south of the wall, which makes you a southerner.”

She could hear the stranger smile behind her. 

* * *

He kept asking her questions, saying silly things, just to keep her talking, keep her awake. To his surprise, despite the girl being half-frozen to death, she was impressively clever, her witty responses making him smile more than he had in weeks. The only time she fell silent was when Ghost, having disappeared into the woods for a while like he usually did, returned to Jon's side. He could feel the girl tensing in front of him in the saddle despite her weakened state, her entire body preparing to flee as she watched the snow-white wolf trot alongside the horses for a while, before once more going off on his own in the forest.

“Your wolf?” she asked quietly. The first question she posed.

“Yes”, Jon replied. “I named him Ghost.”  
“Pretty name”, she surprised him by saying.

Then she kept silent - until he spoke again, fearing she had once more gone unconsious.

* * *

Jon had never been as relieved to see Winterfell's grey walls as he was now. They meant home, meant shelter, meant a fire to warm the girl and a bed for her to sleep in. Scouts on the walls had already seen them coming – the gates would stand open for them once they arrived.

And the girl was still awake, still alive, even though she grew quieter and quieter the closer to Winterfell they came.

Still, Jon reflected, looking at the castle before them, feeling the weight of the girl – awake, alive - against him as the horse fell into a trot -

\- he could no longer claim his trip had been a total failure.


End file.
